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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22623088">Stories of the Second Self: Eye Witness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner'>John_Steiner</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Alter Idem [112]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Police - Fandom, Urban Fantasy - Fandom, social justice - Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:41:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,644</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22623088</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Quintin Gray enjoyed writing for a paper known as the Silverton Seer. However, on an October day, Year Four of Alter Idem, he arrived to the Seer House, which was magically imbued with its own personality. There, the Seer House leads Quintin to the back yard where the couple who ran the Silverton Seer had been murdered. Overwhelmed, Quintin calls police, but also fears for the fate of the Seer House.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Alter Idem [112]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Stories of the Second Self: Eye Witness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Among the odder milestones of the new age was this October, Year Four Alter Idem. Cincinnati was officially back in a state of order and peace longer than the federal occupation had lasted. Our mayor declared this October a month of recognition for restored democracy, and the city council approved a measure authorizing parades and outdoor events to celebrate.</p><p>I’m Quintin Gray. My job? I work at a new newspaper, The Silverton Seer. It was actually run out of my editor's house up in Reading. Yeah, I know, it doesn't make sense to most people who figured that out. However, our distributor was out of Silverton, and the Seer part makes sense for more than just the house. Marie Clover, the editor, is human witch, and especially good at seer magic. She was married to a Cernunnos Fae. He and I didn't get along so well, and my being a werewolf wasn't helping.</p><p>However, I enjoyed coming to work everyday. Marie's house was easily the most unique in all of Reading, and not just because of the eyes and cartoon teeth, which all glowed at night. Marie held the record for casting Personification onto the largest object known in several states. No one knew beyond that, because communication still didn't easily happen throughout most of America and the rest of the world.</p><p>That was part of why The Silverton Seer took off so fast. Marie was one of the first to recognize the return of physical newspapers becoming a growth sector in media and jumped in even before the federal occupation ended. It remained the fourth largest in the city, which is pretty good for how new it was. Marie's husband, Harrison made that happen by writing his first and only article in its opening edition, which included his photo on the front page.</p><p>I used to include both of my facial photos in my articles, until all the hate mail from humans, Fae, and angels started. Since then, Marie decided to only show my human phase image, and even that only happened when space permitted. I still get hate mail, but it's dulled down to a semi-friendly banter, which I took pleasure in reading and responding to in followups.</p><p>On such a day I planned on writing a reader rebuttal I left for work in my therianthropic phase in the dark of early morning. Unlike most werewolves I didn't spontaneously become one. I found someone who was willing to orally transmit it to me, which is to say she bit me at least once every morning, and sometimes, late in the evening or night, for twenty eight days straight. Yes, we have a wonderful marriage, and I updated my status with the Bureau of Pentacaste Affairs.</p><p>Having given up wearing socks, I had my shoes stuffed into a small backpack and bounded along the bicycle lanes in traffic. It was one of the things I reveled in since turning, because I was always an avid runner, and I loved that I can outrun most bicyclists and for nearly the same distance. In Reading, I tended to get more scowls, but that was all the more reason to do it.</p><p>Coming to the Seer House, as it became known, I stood upright and start shifting back. It took around a minute or two, depending on my concentration, but I switched to fully human-looking by the time I got to the front door. The eyes of the house actually follow me, which used to creep me out until I got to know the house a little better. The eyes looked a bid sad this morning, though I hadn't thought anything of it.</p><p>Slipping my shoes on, I enter, since Marie and Harrison only use the upper floor as home and the ground floor for running the paper. Though the door was unlocked, I entered to hear no one else inside. The scents of other people were present, but they weren't so recent as to be from today. Checking the time on my phone, I found that I wasn't too early, and so go to the corner of the front room that has my desk and start up the computer. Over by the front door, I noticed that Marie's broom was still there.</p><p>"Marie," I called out, "Are you testing any spells for sound dampening or scent removal?"</p><p>No answer, so I got up from my desk again, while the computer was still booting up. Harrison is a Fae, and for that reason he would've had a natural aptitude for magic, but Marie was actually the far better practitioner. She even worked out a spell to fly so long as she held the broom in both hands. I'd seen her cruise to and from the Seer House, where I could tell her spell made herself weightless not the broom.</p><p>Between that and the Seer House, I stopped trying to make sense of things, and just went with it all. When I reached out to touch the broom I heard the back door open and slam shut again.</p><p>"Marie?" I called out again, despite hearing no footsteps.</p><p>Going through the ground floor, I reached the room that had once been a kitchen, and was now the printing center. I found it strange that it too was devoid of people, since everyone knew we had to get things up and running by Five a.m. to make our morning deadline.</p><p>While I was in the room, the door opened and slammed again with me looking at it. I cast a gaze up at the ceiling, talking to the house like it's a dog, "What is it pal? Are you trying to tell me something?"</p><p>Elsewhere, I heard windows opening and shutting along the south side of the house. I was pretty sure the house was telling me to go out back, so I did, and caught a smell of blood before seeing anything. There I just stood in shock.</p><p>Marie and Harrison both lay dead in the backyard, with Harrison's five-point antlers cut off, along with his split-hoofed toes and the backward points of his ears. I dropped to my knees crying out into what almost became a howl of mourning. Wanting to cradle Marie's still body, I refrained on seeing the blood around her neck, that also stained the wide neckline of her green dress. The wire used on her neck was still there, subtly writhing and sawing.</p><p>Fumbling for my phone, I finally managed to call 911 subbing, "I need to report a murder. Two people, Marie and Harrison Clover-- Yes, the Seer House-- I think someone used magic. My name's Quintin Gray."</p><p>They didn't need me to tell them the address, which was good, because my mind went blank on that. I went inside to wait for cops, and the Seer House was very obliging, opening the door rather slowly, and closing it with a reverence that let me know it was upset too.</p><p>A knock at the front came, but the house opened right after, and a somewhat thick redheaded woman came in with a badge on the belt line of her civilian clothes. "Mr. Gray?"</p><p>"Yeah," I answered and got up, tears still streaking my face.</p><p>"I'm Detective Grace Carpenter, Cincinnati Police, Pentacaste Division," she introduces herself and then looked around. "Where did you find the victims?"</p><p>"Out there," I replied, pointing to the back door but refused to look that way. "They're out there. The house told me."</p><p>Detective Carpenter raised a brow at that, but went to the backyard without remarking. Other cops, most of them uniformed, also arrived. They went through to the back and started working the scene. I didn't write the law and courts page, but I spoke to Erin who did, and recognized all the things she said police did on a crime scene.</p><p>It brought on a level of detachment that, later, would haunt me, but I needed at the moment to get through this. I relayed everything to the Pentacaste and Homicide detectives everything I saw, heard, and smelled coming in. The woman detective took clippings of hair from Marie and Harrison, which angered me for reasons I couldn't articulate, but she told me is was necessary.</p><p>"What about the Seer House?" I asked.</p><p>"You said it has a personality," Detective Carpenter recalled, "But since it doesn't talk and, legally speaking, isn't a person, I'm not sure I can use it as a witness to what happened."</p><p>That wasn't the reason I had brought it up. "But it'll die without Marie."</p><p>"Sir, the house isn't really alive," the detective assures me.</p><p>"The spell," I reiterate, "It'll fade, and the house will crumble. If your police work is in supernatural stuff can't you find someone to keep up the spell? It's all that's left of Marie now."</p><p>"I know this is hard," Detective Carpenter softens her tone and lightly touched my shoulder. "And I'll my best to resolve this and catch whoever is responsible. Just, I don't know what she did to enchant the house the way she did. I'm sorry."</p><p>And so that was that. We, the staff of The Silverton Seer kept the paper going, but in just weeks we could tell the house wasn't safe to work from anymore. When Personification spells fade, it's because one of two things; lack of positive attention was given, or with more complex objects the original caster of the spell stops maintaining the enchantment.</p><p>The Seer House grew weak, but also angry, until it stopped exhibiting any personality. The home was condemned a couple months later. Cincinnati PD was still working on the Clovers case, and so far believed it to be a hate crime motivated by the inter-caste marriage Marie and Harrison had.</p><p>I stopped enjoying my job, but I kept doing it in their memory.</p>
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